Dan and Ian are coming at you this week after some intense reflection and mindset shifts. This episode is all about the power of negative action and leveraging the inevitable changes in the world as a small business entrepreneur.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book, Anti-Fragile inspires the content for today’s show and the fellas mold his frameworks of anti-fragility, robustness and capitalizing on chaos to you as an entrepreneur. You might want to schedule some reflection time after this episode because it will leave you re-thinking your strategy and applying the principles in this week’s episode.

Are You Robust or Anti-Fragile?

How scalable actions set you up for exponential growth options in the future.

A method for identifying negative actions to eliminate from your business.

How to determine whether your actions exist in a high-upside environment.

The problem with Taleb and this anti-fragile concept is that while he only has one central idea that he’s expounding on (antifragility), the implications are huge.

When someone f**ks your philosophical mother like that, it takes a long time to come to terms with it. It’s been two years since I read the 4HWW and I still feel like I’m having to ingrain that entrepreneurial mindset over a traditional one. There’s so much unwiring and rewiring that has to be done.

Antifragility is at least as profound in it’s implications and the degree to which it contradicts the way most of us were socially conditioned and educated. A big part of it is “domain dependence.” Even as I see fragility in one area, I know I’m still blind to it in so many others.

I liked the heurisitcs and via negativa discussion. I went through a massive purge of what I was consuming after finishing antifragile. It’s amazing how all that time and energy is now devoted to more valuable things…

I just finished the book. It’s an elaboration on his THE BLACK SWAN, which I read at the time of the Great Crunch (2008). Funny thing: I purchased TBS at a Boarder’s, which, like all others, is no longer there.
Like you, I’m still digesting all the information. A lot of implications. I enjoyed his story of how the Romans made engineers sleep under the bridges they constructed.